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Showing posts with label Russians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russians. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
LIBYA: Pro-Gaddafi Forces Go on the Offensive, Retaking Strategic Towns and Oil Facilities near Tripoli... then Turn East
0 comments Posted by queen at 3:55 AM
Forces loyal to embattled Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi scored some strategic gains early today by chasing rebels from at least two towns, apparently in an effort to establish a strategic buffer-zone around the Gaddafi stronghold of Tripoli. They also retook a key coastal oil installation and bombed at least one town in the rebel-held east.
But with Gaddafi going onto the offensive, the escalating level of violence is looking more like a real civil war by the day... this one could get real, real ugly-
AP:
One of those retaken was the strategic mountain town of Gharyan, the largest in the Nafusa Mountains, which overlooks Tripoli, a resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation. The town fell after dark Friday in a surprise attack, and the government troops detained officers who defected to the rebels and drew up lists of wanted protesters and started searching for them, the resident added.
Gadhafi supporters also have said they were in control of the city of Sabratha, west of Tripoli, which has seemed to go back and forth between the two camps in the past week........
In Zintan, 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Tripoli, residents said an attack by pro-Gadhafi forces Monday night was the second since the city fell in rebel hands late last month. But, they added, Gadhafi's loyalists were bringing in reinforcements.
One person in Zwara, which fell to anti-government forces days ago, said guards were posted at every sensitive building and all the entrances to the town.
"We are threatened every day by pro-Gadhafi forces," the nervous Zwara resident said, adding that a pro-Gadhafi figure met with the town's leaders a few days ago and told them they had "a choice" to go back in to orbit "and he will forget what happened, or else he is going to attack us with military force. He even offered us money."
One sergeant in the Libyan army who is of Tuareg ethnicity and is fighting on Gadhafi's side said the military is divided: "Us foreigners, we don't have much choice. We have to support Gaddafi,"....
"There is nothing that's going to convince Gaddafi to quit," the soldier said. "The only way Gaddafi is going to go is if someone puts a bullet in his head, and I can't imagine that. The soldiers who are close to him would never let it happen."
As noted here previously, Gaddafi's not stepping down on anybody's orders: the only way this one's going out is feet-first, just like he said from the start. The chance of a protracted, bloody civil war in Libya is now very real. The forces he's got left are loyal, able, and personally vested in the outcome: the rebels remain lightly armed, somewhat disorganized outside of Benghazi, and without a UN no-fly zone, at the mercy of savage air attacks.
The pro-Gaddafi forces' offensive capabilities may appear feeble, yet it is hard to envision the opposition taking the capitol anytime soon, either. But time is largely on the rebels' side if they can hold territorial gains, take some outside assistance, then start to collect oil revenues from their territory (they currently hold 80% of the oilfields)... thus the sense of urgency and increasingly aggressive strategy of the pro-Gaddafi troops as they aim to put an end to all that while they still can.
Even though things continue to look on-the-balance grim for the regime, almost any outcome is still possible in Libya... up to and including an against-all-odds comeback Gaddafi victory.
Besides expanding territory around Tripoli, pro-Gaddafi forces also pushed east for the first time today, taking a small town and advancing on a large arms depot in rebel-held territory-
BBC:
Forces loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi are moving into rebel territory in the east, taking the small town of Brega.
The BBC's John Simpson in the nearby city of Ajdabiya says the 100-vehicle convoy is expected to advance towards it, and have bombed an arms dump there.......
It has a large arms dump which has been bombed several times by pro-Gaddafi forces.
The loyalists are now only a couple of miles from Ajdabiya, the defenders say.
The rebels are determined to put up a fight but it remains to be seen whether this translates into an organised defence of the city, our correspondent says.
Interestingly, a British Special Air Service (SAS) unit has already been operating quietly in Libya for over a week, playing a part in evacuating foreign oil workers. But the elite commandos are reportedly now poised to seize Col Gaddafi's 10-ton mustard gas stash out in the Libyan desert... probably not a bad idea at this point.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a couple ships to the area yesterday, but what the Libyan resistance really needs from the international community -a no-fly zone established over Libya- seems now a non-starter: while the idea's been bounced around the UN Security Council, reality quickly set-in as to just what they'd be undertaking in attempting to control the airspace of a country twice the size of France while facing substantial Libyan AA defenses.
The Russians have called Gaddafi a "living political corpse", but they sure don't seem to have any interest in contributing to such a UN no-fly zone operation, suggesting "sanctions" instead... you know, like the ones that worked so well in Iran. But nobody else down there at the UN has got the backbone to do anything either, while the US and UK's armed forces are already stretched to the limit with other commitments... not to mention our own leadership issues.
As for the embattled Gaddafi regime, they could care less, anyway: until a recent reconciliation with the West, they've rarely not been under sanctions for as long as anybody can remember... and will continue to do pretty much as they please.
Updates as they come here at Reaganite Republican
UPDATE 7:34am EST: Gaddafi swears to fight
"to the last man and woman in Libya" -here-
Live streaming coverage of developments in Libya -here-
____________________________________________
The Telegraph BBC Pookie's Toons Aljazeera
AP via MyWay ABC
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The Russians Provided China with Stealth Technology Employed in the J-20 Fighter
0 comments Posted by queen at 10:54 PMHow's that reset button working-out, Barry?
According to a senior US lawmaker, the Russians provided China with the stealth technology they're now rolling-out for all the world to see... great. Add this to their new anti carrier missiles, and it's just like Dick Cheney warned us about... they're plainly going after the pillars of US military superiority, namely stealth aircraft and a blue-water Navy. This is the same Kremlin that Obama is so anxious to do arms deals with... in the name of bringing us peace!
Instead of viewing China as the enemy they clearly see themselves as -how else to explain firing missiles off the California coast- Obama has basically surrendered already, financially and otherwise... and really for no reason but the Dems' profligate spending habits that most Americans reject.
Some already consider the J-20 superior to the single engine F-35 we're developing... the more competitive F-22 has already been cancelled by Obama because it had "no peers"... like you'd want that, good grief. And what possible excuse for denying Israel... who were ready to order dozens on the plane... proliferation? Too late now...
And well done, because now we've got one... with the Russian T-50 also on the way. For these and other reasons, the House Armed Services Committee is more than a little bit worried about Obama's ongoing defense cuts...
China got the technology for its first stealth fighter jet from Russia, a senior US lawmaker said Tuesday, one week after the airplane apparently made its maiden flight.
"My understanding is that they built it on information that they received from Russia, from a Russian plane, that they were able to copy," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon told reporters. McKeon, a Republican, said he hoped to "hear more" on the issue from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was on a visit to Beijing when Chinese state media published photographs of the J-20 fighter in the skies over southwestern China.
According to the reports, which cited witnesses, the next-generation war jet -- the existence of which highlights China's drive to modernize its military -- made a 15-minute test flight before landing. The lawmaker, who had been asked whether Beijing had obtained the technology needed to build such an advanced fighter from cyber-espionage, also stressed that "China's a concern" for US national security.
"We need to be looking at China, we need to be looking at North Korea, we need to be looking at Iran," said McKeon, who has given a skeptical greeting to Gates' plans for reductions in US military spending.
"That's what really concerns me when I look at the cuts, the potential cuts, that they're talking about for the defense budget. This is not a safe world," said the lawmaker.
...experts say that the pictures were in the neighborhood development center in western China taken in stages, which they consider one of the last steps before the first flight of the machine....
So far the only fully operational "invisible" fighter in the world belongs to the U.S. Air Force, and the machine's the F-22. Daily also noted that the images leaked just days before the planned visit of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Beijing...
The Chinese government did not publish the photos-. Deputy Commander of the Chinese Air Force General, Che Wei-Zung, but said tests "invisible" airplane has before. He said that the machine will be deployed in eight to ten years. Until now, there was no evidence that the aircraft actually exists...
Chinese prototype according to the Washington expert on the Chinese military, Richard Fisher looks "superior to an American F-35", which the U.S. decided to give priority to the F-22, which is larger and more expensive. J-20 aircraft as the F-22, two engines and is roughly the same size. F-35 has only one engine.
F-35, Americans should have out around 2014.
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Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Improvise! Adapt! Overcome! -and on Chasing Shady Characters Like Viktor Bout, Konstanin Yaroshenko . . . and San Fan Nan
0 comments Posted by queen at 7:59 AMFirst, some Tire Repair 101
How to set the bead on a giant off-road tire
while stuck in the boonies:
-MechanicsHubdotCom on Vimeo-
Speaking of resourceful types...
Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout -major supplier to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in their 2001 war against the Taliban- has been extradited from Thailand to the United States to face terrorism charges:
CNN:
He's known as the "Merchant of Death" and the "Lord of War," -an alleged international arms dealer straight out of a cloak-and-dagger spy novel who eluded authorities for years and inspired Hollywood villains.
But in reality, according to those who have seen or met Viktor Bout, he is a somber man, sometimes nattily dressed, a wheeler-dealer who has insisted he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him.
Bout, a Russian citizen and former military officer, speaks six languages "and I could see him bargaining in all six at the same time," wrote CNN's Jill Dougherty in 2008, recalling her meeting with Bout in 2002 in Moscow, Russia.
Bout arrived in New York late Tuesday after being extradited from Thailand. He faces charges in the United States of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile and conspiring to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. American law enforcement officers have spent years pursuing him, and the extradition process from Thailand was an arduous one for them.
Naturally, the Kremlin is furious... but perhaps not due to the usual nationalistic-protective motives: Bout is believed to have sensitive information that could prove damaging to senior Russian officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin... and they surely don't need the Americans digging into that.
- Moscow Times.
More The Americans vs.
Decrepit-Jetliners-Stuffed-with-Contraband news:
U.S. prosecutors say they are beginning to unravel the latest innovation in drug smuggling: South American gangs that are buying airplanes, filling them with cocaine and using international teams, including Russians, to fly them more than 4,828 kilometers across the ocean to Africa.
As aircraft prices have plummeted because of the financial crisis, and radar coverage over the Atlantic ocean remains spotty, at least three gangs have struck deals to fly drugs to West Africa and from there to Europe, according to U.S. indictments....
Most of the cocaine flown to Africa is bound for Europe, where demand has been rising over the past decade. South American gangs are turning to airplanes because European navies have been intercepting more boat shipments along the African coast, trafficking experts say...
The U.N. agency began warning about trans-Atlantic drug planes after Nov. 2, 2009, when a burned-out Boeing 727 was found in the desert in Mali. Drug smugglers had flown the jet from Venezuela, unloaded it and then torched it, investigators said.
In the last year, arrests in Africa have begun shedding light on how the air routes work. The cases are being prosecuted in a New York federal court because some of the cocaine was supposed to have been sent to the United States. One case has attracted attention in Moscow because one of the defendants, Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, says Liberian police tortured him before he was handed over to the DEA.
He and the other five defendants have denied the charges against them. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the United States of "kidnapping" Yaroshenko and failing to tell the Russian government. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called his arrest an example of the United States overstepping its bounds.
The DEA denies that Yaroshenko was abused. "The quantity of cocaine distributed and the means employed to distribute it were extraordinary," prosecutors wrote in one case. They warned of a conspiracy to "spread vast quantities of cocaine throughout the world by way of cargo airplanes."
Then there's this one... I heard she just lost a plane too lol:
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